History of the Olive Tree

The olive tree, an ancient tree of wisdom and peace, has been adopted by the human race as a source of wealth and food for millennia. The history of the olive tree has its roots deep in time, reaching back to the very origin of agriculture in the first civilizations of the Mediterranean and the Near East.

The wild olive tree, or acebuche, is a common tree in the Near East and the Mediterranean region. The beginning of olive cultivation is situated in the Middle and Near East, although it is impossible to state with precision the geographical area where it first began, perhaps because it occurred simultaneously in several regions where sedentary life established agricultural culture and with it its three main pillars: cereals, the olive tree, and the grapevine.

Olive cultivation is found at the origins of Phoenician, Assyrian, Jewish, Egyptian, and Greek cultures, as well as in other less studied and documented cultures of the Mediterranean. The earliest known written documents concerning the olive tree are Mycenaean clay tablets from the reign of King Minos (2500 BC) which testify to the importance of olive oil to the Cretan economy.